Oki's Movie

Four short, interrelated films focused once again on Hong Sangsoo’s favourite subject of male-female relationships, with the male of the species as ever a somewhat naïve and forlorn specimen. The first concerns a young filmmaker, Jingu, who at a post-screening Q&A finds himself embarrassed at being questioned about his irresponsible actions in an earlier affair; the other three shift backwards in time to the relationship in question, shedding light not only on the involvement of another older man but, finally, on the perceptions of Oki, the film student to whom the men are attracted. Ambiguities and ironies abound in a characteristically wry, witty, prismatic tale which, notwithstanding Hong’s purloining of Elgar, may very well be about hope but has little to do with glory.